Conventionally, in the production of consumer goods such as, for example, meat or other food products, the food is fed (typically pumped) or stuffed into a casing in a manner that allows the casing to fill with a desired amount of the product. As is well-known, the casings can be a slug-type natural or artificial casing that unwinds, advances, stretches and/or pulls to form the elongate casing over the desired product. Another type of casing is a heat-sealed tubular casing formed by seaming a thin sheet of flexible material, typically elastomeric material, together. U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,085,036 and 5,203,760 describe examples of automated substantially continuous-feed devices suitable for forming sheet material or flat roll stock into tubular film casings. The contents of these patents are hereby incorporated by reference as if recited in full herein.
Despite the foregoing, certain factories and plants desire the capability and/or flexibility to be able to produce products using either type of casing without requiring dedicated equipment space and/or separate production lines dedicated to each type of casing.